The present invention relates to digital televisions, and more specifically, to providing improved television channel zapping times for digital televisions by preemptively caching future television channel selections based on a modeling of the user.
A zap time is the total duration from the time a viewer presses a channel change button to the time the new channel is displayed on a television along with corresponding audio. This delay exists in all television systems, but is greater in contemporary digital television systems. Contemporary digital television users often experience an inherent delay when switching between television broadcast channels. The one to three second delay commonly encountered by a user when channel zapping from one channel to the next can significantly hamper the user's quality of experience with the digital television.